The juniors class had last year's uncontested girl's champion Haley Ralstin, joined this year by Landin Madsen and Bryston Canada.  Last year Haley claimed the junior girls title with an entry average of 20.4% and no challengers.  One year later, she entered the Kokomo Indy state tourney with a 29.7% ringer average (an improvement of over 9% in one year.) and two challengers.

With her form and some disciplined practice and competition, Haley is very likely to find more ways of increasing her ringer percentage in the next year or two left of junior pitching.  She has competed in 5 tournaments this season to establish her average.  This could have been at least a six juniors tournament if three other active pitchers had been able to make the Kokomo state; Erica Klask (11.8% in 5 tournaments), Cody Klask (10.4% in 4 outings) and Brandon Bell (9.7% in 3 tournaments).

But on location to challenge Haley Ralstin, and full of game, were Landin Madsen with an entry % of 8.0 and Bryston Canada entering at 4.1%.  Veteran pitchers will tell you that the contest is not determined by entry percentages, otherwise the physical games would not be necessary.  A favored pitcher can always have some problems finding their rhythm and groove and everyone is capable of having a Kodak moment.  Anyway, pitchers who are thinking of improving their own game in the future, are always trying to beat their own entry averages and score as high as possible against their favored opponents; win or lose!  So the youth championship two round robin (two games against each opponent) was set to begin.

With Canada pitching over average and giving up only 2 more ringers to Madsen (5 to 7), Landin picked up additional pennies (single non-ringer points) to get a winning margin of 40 to 22 in his first game which went on for quite some time at 80 shoes.

With half the length of the previous game, Canada doubled his ringer percentage, tripled his entry %, but faced 10 more ringers (5 to 15) from Ralstin.  Haley began the day with a 37.5% game and definitely in her rhythm plus.  Final score Ralstin 42 to 3.

Haley didn't cool off any for her next opponent.  14 more ringers in 38 shoes at 36.8% thrown at Madsen, forced him to improve on his first game against Canada, but nearly scoring 10 points against Ralstin; the game ended 40 to 9 in Haley's favor.  At the end of the first round, Ralstin stood at 2-0, Madsen was 1-1 and Canada was 0-2.

After sitting out the last game, and after pitching such a good game against Haley in game 2, Bryston Canada found this game to be a struggle.  After 60 shoes, Landin Madsen came out on top 40 to 8.  This win gave Madsen a 2-1 W/L record.

Just looking at the game stats, I can't know what is in the minds and hearts of the contestants after a tournament.  But I got the feel from family and friends around the junior pitchers after the battle (because I was there).  I believe all the young people were proud of their performances, and they all had every reason to be with Bryston Canada pitching nearly 3% over his entry average and Landin Madsen coming in at nearly 6% over his entry average and turning in a game that exceeded it by 20%.  But I can attest to how proud the friends and family members were of these game juniors.  I just hope this round by round coverage inspires some of the other juniors, and family and friends, to prepare for the Youth Championship of 2011.  All three of these young warriors were winners in this contest.  And all the future contestants have 365 days to prepare for the next contest.